Hold Still

Last year, the Duchess of Cambridge spearheaded the Hold Still Initiative, which collected photos from lockdown and and showed the great collective effort to keeping people motivated through the difficult pandemic. The final 100 Hold Still portraits have been compiled in new book, ‘Hold Still: A Portrait of Our Nation in 2020’, that provide a unique record of the shared and individual experiences of the first UK lockdown. Funds raised from the sale of the book will be split between leading mental health charity, Mind, and the National Portrait Gallery. The book is be available in UK bookshops and online from Friday 7th May.

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The Duchess of Cambridge visited the Royal London Hospital to mark the publication of ‘Hold Still: A Portrait of Our Nation in 2020’, learning how art and photography are used at the hospital to improve the patient and staff experience. The Duchess saw examples of arts projects and installations and heard how the National Portrait Gallery has helped bring workshops to young patients and their families. Later the Duchess went to the National Portrait Gallery’s archive. The final 100 Hold Still images will become part of the gallery’s national collection.

The Duchess also joined ‘The Book Fairies’ for the day to share copies of Hold Still around the UK. Each copy is adorned with a gold book fairy sticker, gold ribbon, and has a letter from The Duchess tucked inside. To make this activity even more special, book fairies, the Hold Still judges and participants of the final 100 images are leaving copies at places that gave them hope during the lockdown.

The mark the release of the Hold Still Book, Kensington Palace is releasing a series of telephone calls that the Duchess held with participants from the Hold Still photography project, that will be released on their new YouTube channel over the coming weeks. The calls, which took place last autumn, saw the Duchess speak to a number of the 100 finalists who shared their experiences of life during the first COVID-19 lockdown in the UK by submitting an image to Hold Still.

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13 thoughts on “Hold Still

  1. I Think Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge is in same League as Diana, Princess of Wales, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Michelle Obama, Jill Biden,

  2. I Think Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Brooch needs to be worn by Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge

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